Indigenous People, The State and Ethnogenesis: A Study of the Communal Associations of the “Dayak” Communities in Sarawak, Malaysia

This article describes the communal associations of the “Dayak” communities in Sarawak, and their functions of relating to the state and articulating local interests of the indigenous minorities. The significance of communal associations to the ethnogenesis of indigenous peoples is considered as well. Overall, communal associations are useful for projecting the presence of indigenous peoples in a communally stratified nation-state.